Padre Patagonia: Explorer of Heavenly Peaks.

• Author: Goodman, Joshua

A fearless trekker, Father Alberto Maria de Agostini left a valuable legacy as one of the first, and most inspired, documentarians of this rugged region

He was neither the first nor the most famous voyager to fall victim to its mystical spell. But nobody, not even Ferdinand Magellan, Charles Darwin, Bruce Chatwin, or the Argentine explorer Francisco Moreno, ventured as deep into Patagonia's valleys or ranged as far up its heights as did he. If Patagonia is indeed the paradise on earth countless travelers have testified it is, then this tireless priest who came to Patagonia at age twenty-six a simple teacher and a half-century later ended up its greatest explorer, surely deserves to be its patron saint.

His name is Father Alberto Maria de Agostini, but he may as well be called Padre Patagonia. In the land Magellan named after the mythical, giant-sized men that once roamed there, none stood taller than de Agostini. Beginning in 1910 and for nearly five decades, he logged more miles than any explorer ever walking, climbing, and flying over Patagonia's vast and varied landscape. All the way he chronicled his explorations in a bountiful collection of twenty-two books, maps, documentary films and, most impressively, photographs, some of the earliest of the region.

Despite having made such a huge contribution to Patagonia's discovery, de Agostini's legacy is all but unknown. His books are out of print, his photographs rarely exhibited, and his achievements barely recognized by those who visit the region today and enthusiastically climb the peaks he first spotted. Indeed, if not for the efforts of his co-religionists and a group of dedicated Patagonian climbers, de Agostini would likely never get the recognition he deserves.

De Agostini's fascination with the mountains and proclivity for the printed word were far from casual. Born in 1883 to a wealthy publishing family in Pollone, Italy, at the foot of the Alps, de Agostini developed an early interest and ability at mountain climbing. So much so, perhaps, that he joined up with the Catholic Salesians Order, whose founder, Don Juan Bosco, believed it part of his life's work to minister to, and make good Christians of, the few aborigines residing in Patagonia.

Upon finishing his seminary studies in 1910, de Agostini landed a gig any modern-day mountaineer-cum-wanderer his age would die for: a teaching position in the Salesian mission in Punta Arenas, Chile (then called Magallanes), a short distance away from some of the world's most challenging peaks.

Whatever his motivation for joining the clergy--time would reveal just how profoundly spiritual his exploration work really was--the move to Punta Arenas was a propitious choice. For a young wanderlust like de Agostini's, Europe's well-combed ranges, although taller and in many ways more impressive than the Andes, felt in 1910 like an overcrowded tenement. By contrast, the Patagonian Andes was a wholly different world and one, perhaps the last, wide open to discovery. What precious little was known about the region and its people was, like Magellan's account of the Patagones, veiled in myth or half-truth. Indeed, maps of the era still demarcated the region's vast, unexplored interior as Terra de Patagoni or Paese de Giganti.

Filling in this blank canvas became the restless priest's life obsession. From his later writings it's easy to see why. "Hundreds of peaks still sleep a deep sleep without any human ever penetrating their silent kingdom, an exclusive domain of winds and storms. And nevertheless they are the most beautiful mountains of the world; I'd go further: the most complete and harmonious in the splendor of their shapes and in the singular magnificence of the elements that adorn them."

An integral part of this romantic landscape was the region's original inhabitants, for whom de Agostini reserved great affection throughout his life. However, by the...